Quote from: bananaslug on December 12, 2006, 02:37:33 PMAs far as I can gather from the posts here on the forums, Transsexuals base their entire discomfort on 'living in the wrong body' - lo and behold when they receive surgical alterations, their discomfort is removed.
It is impossible for anyone to make blanket statements about everyone elses experiences, but it does seem to me from my own background and from those of people I know that the emphasis of the discussion is often wrong. I'm happy to be corrected though
SRS is not "the cure" for transsexualism - it is just the final piece of the jigsaw. Put it this way - how many people would be "cured" if they received SRS in secret, and were then told to go home, continue with their lives exactly as they were before, and to never tell anyone what they had done?
Such a scenario would certainly help some people a little, but they would still face all the problems that they did before in having to present as male. Doesn't this then call into question that this is simply a case of "having the wrong body"?
The real cure isn't purely physical (though I am not denying the importance of physical change), but is a combination of many factors, including creating a situation where an individuals gender is accepted by those they interact with. There is a lot more to being female than possessing breasts and a vagina after all!
To the outsider, the focus of the "cure" for transsexualism is SRS. They perceive a group of men saying "I will feel better once a surgeon cuts my penis off", and react to that (perhaps understandably) with confusion and think "they must be mentally deranged!" because they are viewing it in isolation from everything else.
But they can't understand what it is like to be categorised as male, having to live life placed into that role when it is wrong. It is not really the fault of society as it is human nature to categorise everything, but that aspect of human nature can cause huge amounts of pain and torment to an individual viewed and treated as one thing when they are not.
The medical profession are pretty much powerless when it comes to diagnosing GID too. All they can really do is rule out the possibility that the patient is suffering from other things, is reasonably sane, and competent to assert that they are experiencing the problems that they say they are. Maybe one day science will provide an answer as to the cause, along with a diagnostic test etc but that is beyond their capabilities at the moment.
Until then I don't think we are making fools of them, nor they us, because at the end of the day they are accepting our word about the problem and offering us treatment based on that.
So, we have a situation where it is a condition that most people can not relate to the problems it causes, medicine can not provide a black and white diagnosis and the focus of mainstream thought (and the media) is on the "extreme" aspect of the treatment. Is it any wonder that there is so much prejudice and misunderstanding about it?
Personally I believe we would be much better served by moving the focus of mainstream debate about GID away from the body and onto the other problems it causes.
In much the same way that the debate about homosexuality is improved once the focus is away from sex and turned to love and emotions that are more easily understood by most people, which in turn leads to understanding, could the discussion about GID be served by focusing on issues away from body change which the majority of people can relate to better?
Society is broadly tolerant of homosexuals now that it is accepted that people are attracted to and fall in love with the people that they do and they have no choice about it (and that love naturally leads to it being expressed sexually).
Would people be more accepting and understanding of GID if they understood that people need to be able to relate to themselves and others (and have other people relate to them) in a manner appropriate to their gender, which in turn naturally leads to people requiring their bodies to be altered to "fit" on occasions?
